"Sweet Child o' Mine" is a song by American
rock band
Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses is an American hard rock band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1985 as a merger of local bands L.A. Guns and Hollywood Rose. When they signed to Geffen Records in 1986, the band's "classic" line-up consisted of vocalist Axl R ...
, released on their debut studio album, ''
Appetite for Destruction'' (1987). In the United States, the song was released in June 1988, topping the US
''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart and becoming the band's only US number-one single. In the United Kingdom, the song was released in August 1988, reaching number 24 on the
UK Singles Chart the same month. In May 1989, it was re-released there in a slightly remixed form and peaked at number six.
Background and composition
During a
jam session
A jam session is a relatively informal musical event, process, or activity where musicians, typically instrumentalists, play improvised solos and vamp over tunes, drones, songs, and chord progressions. To "jam" is to improvise music without ...
at the band's house in
Sunset Strip,
drummer
Steven Adler and
Slash
Slash may refer to:
* Slash (punctuation), the "/" character
Arts and entertainment Fictional characters
* Slash (Marvel Comics)
* Slash (''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'')
Music
* Harry Slash & The Slashtones, an American rock band
* Nash th ...
were warming up and Slash began to play a "circus" melody while making faces at Adler. Rhythm guitarist
Izzy Stradlin
Jeffrey Dean Isbell (born April 8, 1962), known professionally as Izzy Stradlin, is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He was a co-founder, rhythm guitarist, and backing vocalist of the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he re ...
asked Slash to play it again. Stradlin came up with some chords,
Duff McKagan
Michael Andrew "Duff" McKagan (born February 5, 1964) is an American musician. He was the bassist of hard rock band Guns N' Roses for twelve years, with whom he achieved worldwide success in the late 1980s and early 1990s. McKagan rejoined the b ...
created a
bassline
Bassline (also known as a bass line or bass part) is the term used in many styles of music, such as blues, jazz, funk, Dub music, dub and electronic music, electronic, traditional music, traditional, and classical music, for the low-pitched P ...
and Adler planned a beat. In
his autobiography, Slash said "within an hour my guitar exercise had become something else." Lead singer
Axl Rose
W. Axl Rose ( ; born William Bruce Rose Jr., February 6, 1962) is an American singer and songwriter. He is the lead vocalist and lyricist of the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, and has been the band's sole constant member since its inception in ...
was listening to the musicians upstairs in his room and was inspired to write lyrics, which he completed by the following afternoon.
He based it on his girlfriend Erin Everly (daughter of
Don Everly
Isaac Donald Everly (February 1, 1937 – August 21, 2021) was an American musician. Everly was one-half of the singing duo The Everly Brothers alongside his younger brother Phil Everly, Phil.
Early life
Don was born in Brownie, Kentucky on Febru ...
, of
the Everly Brothers
The Everly Brothers were an American rock duo, known for steel-string acoustic guitar playing and close-harmony singing. Consisting of Isaac Donald "Don" Everly and Phillip "Phil" Everly, the duo combined elements of rock and roll, country, ...
, and
Venetia Stevenson), and declared that
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Lynyrd Skynyrd (, ) is an American Rock music, rock band formed in Jacksonville, Florida in 1964. The group originally formed as My Backyard and comprised Ronnie Van Zant (vocals), Gary Rossington (guitar), Allen Collins (guitar), Larry Junstrom ...
served as an inspiration "to make sure that we'd got that heartfelt feeling."
On the next composing session in Burbank, the band added a
bridge
A bridge is a structure built to Span (engineering), span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the path underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, whi ...
and a
guitar solo
A guitar solo is a melody, melodic passage, instrumental section (music), section, or entire piece of music, pre-written (or improvised) to be played on a classical guitar, classical, electric guitar, electric, or acoustic guitar. In 20th and ...
.
When the band recorded demos with producer
Spencer Proffer, he suggested adding a
breakdown at the song's end. The musicians agreed, but were not sure what to do. Listening to the demo in a loop, Rose started saying to himself, "Where do we go? Where do we go now?" and Proffer suggested that he sing that.
An alternate version featuring half a live version, half a newly recorded 1999 version plays during the credits of the movie ''
Big Daddy.''
Music video
A
music video
A music video is a video that integrates a song or an album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device intended to ...
was made for the song in 1987. The music video depicts the band rehearsing in Mendiola's Ballroom at
Huntington Park, California, surrounded by crew members. All of the band members' girlfriends at the time were shown in the clip: Rose's girlfriend Erin Everly; McKagan's girlfriend Mandy Brix, from the all-female rock band the Lame Flames; Stradlin's girlfriend Angela Nicoletti; Adler's girlfriend Cheryl Swiderski; and Slash's girlfriend Sally McLaughlin. Stradlin's dog was also shown. The video was successful on
MTV
MTV (an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on ...
, and helped launch the song to mainstream success.
To make "Sweet Child o' Mine" more marketable to MTV and radio stations, the song was edited down from 5:56 to 4:58, for the radio edit/remix, with much of Slash's guitar solo removed. This drew the ire of the band, including Rose, who commented on it in a 1989 interview with ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason.
The magazine was first known fo ...
'': "I hate the edit of 'Sweet Child o' Mine.' Radio stations said, 'Well, your vocals aren't cut.' My favorite part of the song is Slash's slow solo; it's the heaviest part for me. There's no reason for it to be missing except to create more space for commercials, so the radio-station owners can get more advertising dollars. When you get the chopped version of '
Paradise City' or half of 'Sweet Child' and '
Patience
or forbearance, is the ability to endure difficult or undesired long-term circumstances. Patience involves perseverance or tolerance in the face of delay, provocation, or stress without responding negatively, such as reacting with disrespect ...
' cut, you're getting screwed."
A 7-inch vinyl format and cassette single were released. The album version of the song was included on the US single release, while the UK single was the "edit/remix" version. The 12-inch vinyl format also contained the longer LP version. The B-side to the single is a non-album, live version of "It's So Easy."
On an interview on
Eddie Trunk
Edward Scott Trunk (born August 8, 1964) is an American music historian, radio personality, talk show host, and author, best known as the host of several hard rock- and heavy metal-themed radio and television shows.
Biography
Trunk was born o ...
's New York radio show in May 2006, Rose stated that his original concept for the video focused on the theme of
drug trafficking
A drug is any chemical substance other than a nutrient or an essential dietary ingredient, which, when administered to a living organism, produces a biological effect. Consumption of drugs can be via inhalation, injection, smoking, ingestion, ...
. According to Rose, the video was to depict an Asian woman carrying a baby into a foreign land, only to discover at the end that the child was dead and filled with
heroin
Heroin, also known as diacetylmorphine and diamorphine among other names, is a morphinan opioid substance synthesized from the Opium, dried latex of the Papaver somniferum, opium poppy; it is mainly used as a recreational drug for its eupho ...
. This concept was rejected by
Geffen Records
Geffen Records (formerly The David Geffen Company from 1980 to 1992 and Geffen Records Inc. from 1993 to 2004) is an American record label, founded in late 1980 by David Geffen. Originally a music subsidiary of the company known as Geffen Pi ...
.
This song was used for a teaser trailer premiere of ''
Thor: Love and Thunder,'' which released on April 18, 2022, and the film itself, including the end credits. As of June 2025, the music video currently has over 1.7 billion views on
YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
.
Reception
"Sweet Child o' Mine" placed number 37 on ''
Guitar World
''Guitar World'' is a monthly music magazine for guitarists and fans of guitar-based music and trends. The magazine has been published since July 1980. ''Guitar World'', the best-selling guitar magazine in the United States, contains original a ...
''
's list of the "100 Greatest Guitar Solos." It also came in at number three on ''
Blender''
's 500 Greatest Songs Since You Were Born, and at number 196 on
''Rolling Stone'''s The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2004 and 88th in the 2021 list.
RS500
/ref>
In March 2005, ''Q'' magazine placed it at number six in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. On a 2004 '' Total Guitar'' magazine poll, the introduction's famous riff
A riff is a short, repeated motif or figure in the melody or accompaniment of a musical composition. Riffs are most often found in rock music, punk, heavy metal music, Latin, funk, and jazz, although classical music is also sometimes based ...
was voted the number one riff of all-time by the readers of the magazine. It was also in ''Rolling Stones 40 Greatest Songs that Changed the World. It places number seven in VH1's "100 Greatest Songs of the '80s," and placed number 210 on the Recording Industry Association of America
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...
(RIAA) Songs of the Century
The "Songs of the Century" list is part of an education project by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the National Endowment for the Arts, and Scholastic Inc. that aims to "promote a better understanding of America's musical an ...
list.
The song has sold 2,609,000 digital copies in the United States as of March 2012. In 2017, '' Paste'' ranked the song number 10 on their list of the 15 greatest Guns N' Roses songs, and in 2020, ''Kerrang
''Kerrang!'' is a British music webzine and quarterly magazine that primarily covers rock, punk and heavy metal music. Since 2017, the magazine has been published by Wasted Talent Ltd (the same company that owns electronic music publication ...
'' ranked the song number eight on their list of the 20 greatest Guns N' Roses songs.
Guitarist Slash
Slash may refer to:
* Slash (punctuation), the "/" character
Arts and entertainment Fictional characters
* Slash (Marvel Comics)
* Slash (''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'')
Music
* Harry Slash & The Slashtones, an American rock band
* Nash th ...
said in 1990, " he songturned into a huge hit and now it makes me sick. I mean, I like it, but I hate what it represents."
''Cash Box
''Cashbox'', also known as ''Cash Box'', is an American music industry trade magazine, originally published weekly from July 1942 to November 1996. Ten years after its dissolution, it was revived and continues as ''Cashbox Magazine'', an online ...
'' called it a "medium tempo rocker by the new hero's 'sic''of metal, featuring a nice breakdown" and "standout guitar playing."
Australian Crawl controversy
In 2015, the web page of the Australian music TV channel MAX
Max or MAX may refer to:
Animals
* Max (American dog) (1983–2013), at one time purported to be the world's oldest living dog
* Max (British dog), the first pet dog to win the PDSA Order of Merit (animal equivalent of the OBE)
* Max (gorilla) ...
published an article by music writer Nathan Jolly that noted similarities between "Sweet Child o' Mine" and the song "Unpublished Critics" by the Australian band Australian Crawl
Australian Crawl (often called Aussie Crawl or The Crawl by fans) were an Australian rock band founded by James Reyne (lead vocals/piano/harmonica), Brad Robinson (rhythm guitar), Paul Williams ( bass), Simon Binks (lead guitar) and David ...
, from 1981. The article included both songs, inviting readers to compare the two. It also cited a reader's comment on an earlier article that had originally drawn attention to the similarities between the songs. As of May 2015, this comment no longer appeared on the earlier article. The story went viral quickly, encouraging several comments on both the MAX article and the suggestion that "Unpublished Critics" had influenced "Sweet Child o' Mine," including one from Duff McKagan, bass player with Guns N' Roses when "Sweet Child o' Mine" was written and recorded. McKagan found the similarities between the songs "stunning," but said he had not previously heard "Unpublished Critics." In 2016, Simon Binks
Simon John Binks (born 27 November 1956,) is an Australian rock musician who was a guitarist and singer-songwriter for Australian Crawl from founding in 1978 to disbanding in 1986.
Biography
Early career
Binks was raised in the Mornington Peni ...
reportedly downplayed the similarities, writing in a YouTube comment, "I just can't see Axl and Slash listening to Australian Crawl. It's a really common chord progression. There must be hundreds of songs with the same progression."
Uses in media
The song has been used in numerous films and series, most recently in the 2025 series finale
A series finale is the final installment of an episodic entertainment series, most often a television series. It may also refer to a final theatrical sequel, the last part of a television miniseries, the last installment of a literary series, ...
of ''Cobra Kai
''Cobra Kai'' is an American Martial arts film, martial arts comedy drama television series created by Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, and Hayden Schlossberg, and distributed by Sony Pictures Television. It serves as a sequel to the first three ''The K ...
''. Other films and series include:
* '' The Wrestler'' (2008)
* '' Step Brothers'' (2008)
* '' The Big Short'' (2015)
* '' Captain Fantastic'' (2016)
* '' Thor: Love and Thunder'' (2022)
Slash performs his guitar solo as a guitarist auditioning for a band in a Capital One
Capital One Financial Corporation is an American bank holding company founded on July 21, 1994, and specializing in credit cards, auto loans, banking, and savings accounts, headquartered in Tysons, Virginia, with operations primarily in the ...
commercial in which the theme is "easiest decision in the history of decisions."
The song is used in a 2024 commercial for Spectrum
A spectrum (: spectra or spectrums) is a set of related ideas, objects, or properties whose features overlap such that they blend to form a continuum. The word ''spectrum'' was first used scientifically in optics to describe the rainbow of co ...
cable service.
Formats and track listings
Personnel
* W. Axl Rose – lead vocals
* Slash
Slash may refer to:
* Slash (punctuation), the "/" character
Arts and entertainment Fictional characters
* Slash (Marvel Comics)
* Slash (''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'')
Music
* Harry Slash & The Slashtones, an American rock band
* Nash th ...
– lead guitar
* Izzy Stradlin
Jeffrey Dean Isbell (born April 8, 1962), known professionally as Izzy Stradlin, is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He was a co-founder, rhythm guitarist, and backing vocalist of the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he re ...
– rhythm guitar, backing vocals
* Duff "Rose" McKagan – bass, backing vocals
* Steven Adler – drums
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Certifications
Release history
Sheryl Crow version
The song was covered by Sheryl Crow
Sheryl Suzanne Crow (born February 11, 1962) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and actress. She is noted for her Optimism, optimistic and Idealism, idealistic subject matter, and incorporation of genres including Rock music, rock, Po ...
on the soundtrack to ''Big Daddy'', and released as a bonus track on her third studio album, '' The Globe Sessions''. The recording was produced by Rick Rubin
Frederick Jay Rubin (, ; born March 10, 1963) is an American record producer. He is a co-founder of Def Jam Recordings, founder of American Recordings, and former co-president of Columbia Records.
Rubin helped popularize hip hop by produci ...
and Crow. A music video for Crow's version was also released, directed by Stéphane Sednaoui. Crow performed the song live at Woodstock '99.
Ultimate Classic Rock profiled the song as part of a series on "Terrible Classic Rock Covers", and ''Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason.
The magazine was first known fo ...
'' readers named it the fourth worst cover song of all-time. Despite its negative reception, it became a moderate hit in Australia, Canada, Iceland, Ireland and the United Kingdom, and it earned Crow a Grammy Award
The Grammy Awards, stylized as GRAMMY, and often referred to as The Grammys, are awards presented by The Recording Academy of the United States to recognize outstanding achievements in music. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious ...
for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance.
Charts
Taken by Trees version
In 2009, Taken by Trees, the solo project of Swedish singer Victoria Bergsman, former lead singer of the Concretes covered the song for the 2009 John Lewis & Partners Christmas advert, a UK advertising tradition since 2007. It was later announced that the version would be released as their next UK single. It was also used in the promotional trailers for the 2009 remake of ''The Last House on the Left''. The song was also used in the final scene for the 2010 film '' Life as We Know It''. Bergsman's version reached number 23 on the UK Singles Chart on November 28, 2009 during a six week spell in the top 75.
See also
* Guns N' Roses discography
* List of best-selling singles in the United States
* List of glam metal albums and songs
* List of Hot 100 number-one singles of 1988 (U.S.)
* List of UK Rock Chart number-one singles of 2010
References
{{Authority control
1987 songs
1988 singles
1989 singles
1999 singles
2009 singles
1980s ballads
Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles
Black-and-white music videos
Cashbox number-one singles
Geffen Records singles
A&M Records singles
Rough Trade Records singles
Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance
Guns N' Roses songs
Glam metal ballads
Hard rock ballads
Music videos directed by Stéphane Sednaoui
Sheryl Crow songs
Songs involved in plagiarism controversies
Song recordings produced by Rick Rubin
Songs written by Axl Rose
Songs written by Izzy Stradlin
Songs written by Slash (musician)
Taken by Trees songs
UK Independent Singles Chart number-one singles